


Without a Doubt

by feistymuffin



Category: JackSepticEye (YouTube RPF), Markiplier (YouTube RPF), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: A Bit of Fluff, Alternate Universe, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Breaking Up and Getting Back Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-26
Updated: 2016-11-26
Packaged: 2018-09-02 10:04:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8663197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feistymuffin/pseuds/feistymuffin
Summary: Mark makes a pretty big mistake, but he manages to fix it just fine.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i literally wrote this in like five hours, start to finish, because i woke up with the single largest craving for writing break-up/make-up angst with (of course) a happy ending so let's fucken go

The door slamming behind him covers his first sob, but not the ones that follow. With his hands over his face he feels a new, deep-seated ache in his chest that he's never felt before, just put there by the person still in the apartment. Someone who holds his soul in his hands, and just completed the act of crushing it in his strong grip.

He doesn't get far when he goes to leave, his legs crumbling underneath him as he tries to make it to the elevator. He falls to his knees, listing sideways until his shoulder hits the hall wall and stops him from tipping over completely.

Jack never expected that he would have to deal with this. And he never would have guessed that he would be one of those people, the ones who lose a small piece of their self, who die a little inside after a break-up from a relationship that--he thought--would last forever. Then again, he knows that what he felt... what he feels isn't surface value only, or he would have simply walked out and gone home.

He secures a hand over his mouth when the sobs evolve into wails as Jack makes an attempt at calming down. Despite his effort the feeling grows like a living thing, feeding off of Jack's pain and nestling its way into his heart to make a cozy home for itself. He hunches over his lap, curling into himself to try and smother the feeling eating him from the inside with needle teeth.

_"Sometimes I get the feeling that you're just here for the food."_

_"And what the hell is that supposed to mean?" Jack demanded furiously._

_"You won't push him out of your life, you won't listen to me when I tell you I'm concerned," Mark replied evenly, like they're talking about the game that was on last night. "But you have no problem coming to bed and having fun, and then leaving again and doing it all over."_

_"I can't believe what you're accusin' me of," Jack said, shellshocked. The words were mostly to himself as he watched Mark's face transform into a mask of bitterness and underlying rage. "Mark, listen to what you're sayin', please--"_

_"Don't act like I'm out of line by suggesting it," Mark snapped hotly, his face red with rising temper. "You see him all the time. More than me by a landslide, and even though you know I know all the facts you're still going to deny it?" Mark shook his head, his mouth a thin, pressed line. "You're pathetic."_

Jack's other hand comes to join the first, to hold in the mournful sounds falling out of him like a trickling waterfall. His body shakes with the force of his crying, his hands and arms and even his shoulders trembling as the fight still runs through his mind. But he pushes it away, pushes it down until all he feels is the ache and not the fresh pain. He can't avoid it for long, but he can postpone it until he gets back home.

He gets to his feet on legs like a foal's, a hand braced on the wall beside him. _Breathe in, breathe out,_ he reminds himself, progressing to the elevator. Just one breath at a time.

 

Seeing as Jack never lived with Mark--despite being together for over a year--there's no battle for reclaiming items or arguing over who owns what. Mark calls him one day, the week after their fight, and says he gathered his things and he can come get them. They haven't spoken a word to each other since Jack left that afternoon, and even now the small item that was supposed to bring them closer together weighs heavy in Jack's pocket. A constant reminder, but he couldn't let go of it if he tried.

The ache doesn't goes away. Jack wakes up in the mornings, and it's there as soon as he's cognitive enough to notice. He goes to class or work or both, he comes home, and it's there. He would say he eats somewhere in between, but he's not doing much of that these days. He's too nauseous most of the time to stomach more than a glass of water. 

To prove something to himself Jack googles what heartbreak is, what the physical symptoms are, and he's unsurprised. He knew that he loved--loves Mark, but it never mattered, it just was. He had thought... well, he had thought he wasn't alone. He was wrong.

After work Jack goes to Mark's, his messenger bag over his shoulder. He uses his key to come into the building, and climbs the stairs to the third floor. But at Mark's door he knocks, because he's lost the right to enter unannounced anymore.

The brunet opens the door, and when he sees Jack his expression shuts down. "I'm just... just here for my things," Jack says, unable to hold eye contact. 

Mark is silent for a long moment, then, "Come in, then. I'll go get them." He opens the door wide enough for Jack to squeeze through, then shuts it behind him. He disappears into the apartment.

Jack lingers in the front hall, shuffling on his feet as he fights the urge to cry. Being here again is harder than he thought. The ache hasn't left, but the stabbing, razor-sharp knife that Mark left in his chest still makes up for any lost time that Jack suppressed it for. Jack is gasping softly from the pain when Mark reappears, a small duffel bag in his hand.

Almond-shaped eyes study him like a museum artifact. "Don't know what you're getting worked up about," he mutters. "The deed is done, for both of us. Just move on to the next guy." Mark smirks meanly. "If you haven't already."

Jack doesn't bother responding, or defending himself. Mark's made up his mind about him, and the last time they spoke he wouldn't listen to anything Jack told him. He holds out a shaking hand for the duffel. 

Mark frowns as he gives it to him, and Jack slings the strap over his shoulder. "You're really hamming this up, aren't you? You know I don't care anymore, right? We're over."

His eyes close on a wave of fresh pain. "I know. I really do know, so please stop. You got what you wanted, I'm leavin' you alone after this. So I don't know why you're--" Jack chokes as his throat swells with feeling, his eyes watering, and he quickly turns back to the door. "Never mind. Bye."

A hand is on his elbow, firm and unflappable. "What I wanted?" Mark asks, dangerously low. Jack doesn't dare turn back to see what his face looks like. "You think I wanted you to cheat on me?"

Jack's chest spasms in agony, and he gasps and presses an unsteady hand there. "I didn't cheat on you," he says for probably the twentieth time. "The guy was a friend, just a work friend."

"Was?" Mark scoffs. His hand drops. "Do you expect me to believe you're not seeing him anymore?"

"I never was in the first place," Jack murmurs, tears leaking from his eyes. He uses his sleeve to brush them away. "He and I don't talk anymore."

Mark's voice is arrogant when he says with bite, "It's a bit late for that. I already dumped you."

_I know you did,_ Jack thinks miserably. Mark's careless statement flares a torturous stab under his ribs, but Jack's getting good at ignoring them. "Yeah," is all he says, and he moves forward to open the door and leave this place for good.

"Why did you do it?" Mark asks him before he's over the threshold. If there's any emotion in the words then Jack can't hear them. 

"I didn't," Jack tells him, quiet. He half-turns to look over his shoulder at Mark, who's standing there with his big arms crossed and a peeved look on his face. He appears to be listening, at least, so Jack confesses what he couldn't before. "The guy is a friend, or was. His wife is a party planner." Jack swallows, looking forward again. "He was the go-between for she and I, while I planned your surprise birthday party."

There's a dumbfounded silence behind him, and Jack would be smug about it but he doesn't have much of anything in him anymore. He fishes the object out of his pocket, a key. Unremarkable on its own, but when he turns and holds it out to Mark, the man in front of him is silent, completely shocked as he stares down at it.

"I honestly don't think you deserve this," Jack says, and his voice is thick and wobbly, "but it's not as if I can return it." When Mark doesn't move to take the key, Jack shifts the few feet necessary to be in the kitchen and sets it on the counter. "It's for a storage unit."

"What's inside it?" Mark says quietly, his eyes wide and stuck on the key.

"Scuba diving gear for two," Jack replies, numb. Some months ago, Mark's fear of the ocean had come up in conversation, and Jack had jokingly said he'd get him into a wetsuit and swimming in the sea if it was the last thing he did. Jack didn't realize how true that would be. "On rental for one week. I left the paperwork and everything with the gear, so you know where to return it. It's all paid for."

"But..." Mark says weakly, lost. "You... you cheated. Why would you--?"

Jack turns on him angrily. "Who decided that I cheated?" he growls. "Who decided that my coworker, because he and I met for drinks once or twice a week, was actually fuckin' me stupid whenever you thought we were just out for a beer. Who decided that?!" Jack screams at him.

"He kissed you, I saw him do it," Mark protests, furious, but he's uncertain. 

"He and his wife are swingers," Jack sighs, rubbing his forehead and turning back to the door. "He invited me to go home with him and kissed me, and I said no, and then he left. I didn't tell you about it because then I'd have to tell you about the party, but when you confronted me and just refused to believe me anyway... Well, I didn't see the point in fighting you when you so easily made up your mind on what I was capable of." He swallows, continuing, "He was very nice about it all, and he still said his wife would do the party for me. Which doesn't matter anymore, anyway." Jack bites his lip as tears threaten again, the ache encouraging them to fall. "Are we done? I have a paper due." 

"You didn't cheat," Mark says, a whisper of realization. "You didn't... you didn't--"

"No need to tell me," Jack gripes, clenching his fingers around the doorknob. Desperate for escape from his personal hell. "I already knew that." Tears streak his face, because he can't even begin to try and hold them back. He wipes at them with his thumb. 

"Jack," his ex-boyfriend says, misery plain in his tone. "Jack, I..."

"Don't worry about it," Jack says, his wet eyes looking ahead through the open doorway. "We're over. It's fine. You..." He sighs, exhaling jerkily as his lungs spasm with minor sobs. "You proved how much my word meant to you." _How much I meant,_ Jack thinks, driving the knife in deeper.

"No, God, I--I can't believe I..." Mark says in anguish. A hand grabs at Jack's arm again, but he shoves it off hard. "Jack, God, please, I'm so sorry--"

"Mark, don't beg," Jack whispers. "You wouldn't want to be pathetic like me." Fierce pain writhes under his heart, coiling like a snake waiting to strike. "It's beneath you."

"No," is wrenched out of Mark's throat, a dismal cry. "No, I'm the one beneath you. I--I didn't believe you. I'm sorry, Jack, I'm so sorry, I--please look at me, talk to me," Mark pleads.

Slowly Jack faces him. Mark stands there, just where he was before, but now his expression is distressed, slightly frantic. He clenches his hands in front of him, rubs and fidgets them like he's cold, but Jack acknowledges it as one of Mark's nervous habits. "I don't think I have anythin' to say," Jack murmurs, "since you'll just ignore it anyway."

Mark's mouth distorts as he himself appears to hold back tears. "I'll never ignore you," he says with conviction. "I promise, I--"

"Don't make promises you can't keep," Jack snarls, backing up a step, towards the hall. "At the first trial of trust you failed." He snorts, derisive. "I wonder how many other times I didn't meet your standards."

"Never," Mark insists at once, following him and crowding into his space. Before Jack can avoid him his big hands are around his neck, holding him fast as Mark leans in. Jack turns his face away but Mark uses his hands to still him, and he presses his mouth urgently to Jack's. 

Jack struggles, pushing with his hands and using a knee to try and pry Mark away, but he hangs on and forces whatever feeling he's trying to convey on Jack. When he goes limp in defeat in Mark's arms, Mark makes a small sound and slides his tongue between Jack's lips. With his eyes tightly shut, Jack lets him. Tears follow familiar tracks down his face.

At Jack's lack of response, Mark lifts his head. "Baby, what's wrong?" Mark asks as he pulls back, but then he sees Jack's face. "J-Jack?"

"Haven't you done enough?" Jack whispers, his eyes flooded and accusing. "Do you need to--to have your way with me too?"

Mark's hands tense, and then migrate to grasp at Jack's biceps. "No, no, of course not, I just--" Mark falters, worried. "I just wanted to show you how I felt."

"You didn't have to," Jack says, morose, eyeing him. "I got the message, okay? So I don't know why you're d-draggin' this out." His lips tremble, making him stutter. "I don't know w-why you're actin' like you think I'm worth h-havin' around."

"Because you are," Mark says instantly, brow tilted sadly. "You are, you're worth everything under the stars." He studies Jack's face. "You don't believe me," he says, tormented.

"Now you know what it feels like," Jack says quietly. He shirks away from Mark's touch and Mark lets him go. "F-fool me twice, shame on me."

Mark moves like he wants to embrace him again, but he stops. "I know I don't..." He closes his eyes briefly, his face distorted in subtle pain, before he continues, "I don't deserve another chance, after what I did. What I said. And I'll spend the next five hundred years trying to make it up to you if you'll let me." Here, Mark hesitates, swallowing. "Or," he mumbles, "you can just... just walk out the door, and I'll never bother you again."

Jack is tempted in both directions, leaning hard either way and he can't decide which one holds more promise, more truth. "I love you," Jack tells him, but it's matter-of-fact. "Did you know that? Did you know that I've loved you since that night in the park that you took me caterpillar hunting, and we fell asleep under a tree and woke up covered in them?" When Mark only shakes his head, looking staggered, Jack murmurs, "You rolled over and looked at me and said, "Good morning," with this smile on your face like you were lookin' at somethin'... somethin' meaningful, and true. You plucked a caterpillar off my cheek and told it to get its own potato. And I fell in love with you."

"I'm so sorry I put you through this," Mark says softly. His hands are fidgeting again, wringing themselves to death. "That's all I have left to say, I'm sorry." He bites his lip, but a despairing noise still makes it out past his lips. "God, I'm so fucking sorry."

_He can't say it back,_ Jack thinks with a growing sense of hopeless acceptance. _Of course he can't. If he loved me he would never have done any of this. If he loved me he would've trusted me. Fifteen months, and he still doesn't feel..._

"Would you want me to stay?" Jack hears himself ask, even as he urges his feet to take him through the doorway and out of Mark's life. 

"I want you to stay," Mark whispers. "I want you to stay and I want you to come to bed and I want you to cuddle me until we both grow old."

Jack sniffles, and the stinging pain subsides in the wake of the tentative hope that Mark is giving him. "And what if this happens again? You can't... you don't believe what I say over whatever other facts you may be presented with. We'll just be back here the next time you think I'm bein' shady."

Mark shakes his head, taking a step forward, and another when Jack doesn't retreat from him. "I won't put my own dumb opinions over what you tell me. You're the smart one, anyway, I don't know what I was thinking."

Smiling discretely Jack says with a roll of his eyes, "Now he gets it."

Cautiously Mark raises a hand, but stops himself again, instead moving behind Jack and shutting the door. "Yeah, well, that's why I'm a day labourer. They don't pay arborists to be smart." He motions Jack inside, a nervous hand rubbing the back of his neck. "If you wanted, you could stay for a while. Just hang out," Mark adds hastily. "You don't--I won't make you do anything."

Jack unloads his duffel and messenger bag, depositing them at the door. "Mark, relax, it's alright. I'll stay for a bit."

The brunet smiles, but it's not all there. Jack watches him anxiously gravitate to different things as he asks what Jack wants to do, and for simplicity Jack picks a movie. As Mark sets it up he takes a few deep breaths, and he's glad when no pain accompanies the action. The ache is still there, omnipresent, but it's quiet and forgettable until he's alone, anyway.

Mark puts in a DVD as Jack sits on the couch and then hesitates as he comes to sit, apparently unsure of where he should be.

"It's okay, we can cuddle," Jack says, a little amused when Mark nearly trips over himself in his clamour to get to Jack. He sits on the cushion next to him but instantly his hands are at Jack's shoulders, pushing him to lie back and take Mark's weight. He squirms his arms beneath Jack and pulls him close, pressing his face into his neck.

Jack glances over at the TV screen that he can't really see properly and smiles ruefully. He didn't think he'd be watching it much anyway. With a soft sigh he rests his hand at the base of Mark's back, rubbing in slow strokes and circles. 

They're silent for a long time, wordlessly healing with physical contact--at least Jack is. The pain, while rememberable, is lessening with each recollection. "Why did you get angry?" Jack asks after some time, the explosive and raucous noise from the movie humming in the background. "When you thought I cheated. You didn't get sad, or anything else. Just mad, and mean."

"I thought you cheated," Mark says, lips tickling Jack's neck and voice muffled. "I thought you had cut me out of your life, so I tried to do the same. The more you denied it, the more I was sure you were lying and I just got more upset, more depressed, angrier, but I didn't want to let you see how fucked up I was over it all. Joke's on me, though."

"I'm proud of your conviction, if nothin' else," Jack muses, and Mark's body shakes with gentle laughter. "I won't hold this against you, Mark," he continues, stronger. "You know me by now, you know what sort of person I am. But I want you to know that, while I forgive you, I'll never forget this. I don't want you to feel bad any more than necessary--because you should feel a little bad, at least for a while--but this is the consequence of what you did."

Mark nods, but doesn't move from his hiding spot. "I'm willing to grovel for as long as it takes, to make you love me again," he says into Jack's skin, then brushes his lips there repeatedly in a rain of kisses.

Jack can't help the giggle he lets out, or how he tries to twist away from him. Mark makes a sound synonymous to a grizzly bear and digs his fingers into Jack's ribs as he nibbles behind his ear. Squealing from the assault, Jack pushes at Mark's face and laughs helplessly, powerless against his hands as they torture his nerve endings. Mark laughs, too, biting playfully at Jack's fingers as he wriggles and writhes, using his body to keep him mostly still. 

"No-o-o-o--oh fuck, I give, god damn!" Jack cries out, breathless and desperately trying to get away from his tickles.

Mark relents and gets to his knees, lifting off of Jack and smiling down at him. "That's the only kind of pain I want to put you in, from now on."

"I'm okay with that," Jack says, panting, and he smiles back. His hands make their way up Mark's arms, coaxing him to lie back down by pulling gently. "I never stopped lovin' you," he tells him as he lowers. "I didn't get to stop carin' about you. That's not how love works. Though, that's not to say that I wasn't royally pissed for a few days."

"Much more grace than I would've had, I admit," Mark chuckles. Slow are the kisses that Mark places on Jack's mouth, as if unsure of his welcome. But Jack opens up willingly, taking his tongue into his mouth with a small sigh and letting his hands pull at the fabric of Mark's t-shirt. 

Mark's hands tremble when they slide down Jack's body, and he puts a soft hand to Mark's cheek to get him to pause. "What's wrong?" Jack asks him once he withdraws.

"I'm counting my blessings," he laughs unsteadily. His face is a story of trepidation and fear. "I don't know how much longer I'll have them, the way I'm going."

"Treat me like your personal ocean," Jack says, and Mark gives him a weird look. He smiles. "Act as if you can't fathom what I have within me, what I'm capable of doin'. Give me a reverence unlike anythin' else, and no matter how rough or treacherous I may get, give me the space to breathe freely like the powerful force I am. Be afraid of me, just a little, but have more fear of losin' me above any other fear." Jack sighs slowly, a content rush of air, and his hand at Mark's cheek becomes caressing. "Treat me like I'll be here forever, because I will be."

Mark gives a small, short huff of a laugh, rubbing his knuckles at his dewy eyes. "Did I miss the part where you became a romantic?"

Jack grins, offering a shrug. "Well, I gave it a shot anyway. You could always proposition me, see where that goes."

Shaking his head Mark gets to his feet with another laugh, then helps Jack stand. He doesn't let him go far, though, as he pulls him close enough to share breaths. "There's only one thing that'll happen if I proposition you."

"Oh yeah?" Jack chuckles, lets his hands run smoothly up Mark's back beneath his shirt. He lifts his face for a kiss, smiling when Mark immediately moves to comply. 

As he lifts his head Mark nods, his expression serious. "I'll spend every day until forever saying I'm sorry. My touch, my kiss, my heart and soul, you can have them indefinitely--it's all just for you. Everything I do, is just for you." 

Jack gives him a soft look. "Now who's bein' romantic?"

Mark shrugs. When he smiles, it's glowing and real. "I guess you'll just have to deal with it, won't you?"

Jack's laughter rings in the apartment, purging the sedentary ache from his chest for good.


End file.
